Let's talk about the new album. "Backyard Babies' represents what the BYB are nowadays, after twenty years of activity. Somebody describes it as a more mature and very inspired 'Diesel and Power'. What do you think about that?
Nicke: I think it's weird that people talk about 'Diesel and Power' in a way, because I have never really thought about that. But if you mention like that, maybe. It's still the same band, it's still the same four band members, it's still the same basic idea that we had. To play good rock'n'roll music and to keep on focusing on great songs, instead of just trying to hiding behind productions.

Dregen: For me it's kind of weird because we were so young when we did 'Diesel and Power', we didn't even need to shave, we were like fucking babies, I think that you're hearing the same band, the same band members and the same idea of Backyard Babies. It's just we were 15 years old but now we're 35. Still today we love the albums we loved when we were 15. It's still pretty much the same guys, but that just got older.

It's why the album is just called 'Backyard Babies'. Because it's still just you.
Dregen: Yes, it totally represents all what the band has learnt thru the years.

The new album's cover is an obvious tribute to a picture shot in the 30s by Ebbets: there are a bunch of workers having lunch on a steelbeam mid air, during the construction of the Rockfeller center in New York City. How did you come up with this idea?
Dregen: Micke, the photographer and layout guy! He’s been doing all of our album covers ever since (“Diesel and Power” as well). We were sitting having a meal on a pizzeria wondering what we should do for the next album, and there was this picture on the wall. I grew up seeing this pictures everywhere! And we were like “Oh that’s classic! We should do something THAT classic”, and he was like “I’ve never seen a band doing a pastiche of that picture”. And also I found out later that in that bulding, on the original photo, there were the RCA offices, our old label in New York we left.
And also I remember my first experience with music in my all life: was a little picture of KISS when I was 5 or 6, a picture of 1976 of the Empire State Buildings with this kind of blue-ish background! So it was a little mix between the two pictures.

I have a theory that the helicopter that is behind Dregen's back is about the Hellacopters disbanding? Am I correct?
Nicke: Yes! How many people are falling out? Just 5… even the piano player.

In some of the new promo pics you chose, you are all black and blue, and these pictures are quite unusual. What was the inspiration for this pics and who came up with the concept? Was this photoshoot done by Micke Erikson of Mindustries, or did you use another photographer?
Nicke: I’s not him, it’s another photographer actually.
Dregen: We thought it was fun, I like those pics.

How did you decide on "Fuck Off and Die" as a first single?
Dregen: Our new album has maybe 5, maybe 6 singles and I don’t think “Fuck Off And Die” is number one hit single in a way, but after 20 years of being struggling with record companies, we formed our own record companies, in fact you’re talking to the two “Billion Dollar Babies” record company bosses here! So often your record company bosses tell you, you can never have “Fuck Off And Die!” on the media. And if you listen to a radio station today, you notice there’s so much music coming in, such as “I love you baby you’re so enchanting today...”

So you just wanted to say fuck…
Nicke: Yes in fatc our next single is called “Fuck You Fucking Fuck, Fucking Fascist Also”.

How did you come up with the concept for the video?
Dregen: The lyrics of “Fuck Off And Die” are not so aggressive, it’s actually kind of positive, it’s about myself and that every human being has to be polite and nice of course, but everybody has a dark side, it’s like a ying and yang. It’s about when my dark side is coming out a little bit too much and doing too many stupid things. So I want the dark side to go fuck off and die. The video is about playing with shadows. Those shadows are our dark side.
The idea actually comes from an old comic book I used to read when I was a kid: Lucky Luck. He shot faster then his shadow!

Have you decided what your next single will be yet?
Nicke: Yes, it’s nomadic.

I would have chosen “Abandon”!
Nicke: That would be probably the 3rd single!

In the japanese edition's bonus track, the piano is played by Dizzy Reed, of Guns'n'Roses. Did you already know him? Were you already friends? Or did you just contact him to do this one part of your album?
Nicke: We met Dizzy many years ago and we’ve been friends ever since. He always wanted to work with us, he always thought we needed piano in our songs, he said he would have loved to be in our records, it never happened until now, when we asked him to play piano on “Saved By The Bell”. Has been fun, awesome.

In “Zoe is a weirdo” the lyrics say: “So put her boyfriend back in Danko’s trunk”!
Is the "Danko" that you mention, your friend Danko Jones?
Dregen: When we took Danko Jones out in 2000 in the “Making Enemies” tour, they had a song called “Cadillac”, which is on an EP of Danko, and the lyrics included: ‘I keep your boy in the trunk’. So it’s a tribute to our friend Danko.

Recently, we attented a Twisted Sister live show, that, after 25 years of activity are still one of the best live bands ever. What's the best live band ever you saw? A band that left you literally speachless?
Nicke & Dregen together: AC/DC!!!
Nicke: AC/DC. If I think about how old they are today... Angus is like 55 and you don’t see that on stage. We toured with AC/DC in 2000, they’re great even now, 8 years after!

Dregen: I’ve been a KISS fan for ages, and when I was with Hellacopters, we toured Scandinavia with KISS, they were good but you could see they played not for passion, more for cash. AC/DC got passion.
Nicke You know when the show is really good? When the crowd hits 20 centimetres from the ground.

Dregen: Bands like Hanoi Rocks can have good shows, but also bad shows for many reasons. AC/DC shows are ALWAYS good. The key to maintain for long time, is to have high standards of your gigs. That’s why AC/DC are still great today! You’ll never be disappointed!

Do you like the new album?
Dregen: I only heard the single “Rock’n’Roll train”, but AC/DC is like fucking Coca Cola. You know what you get!

Dregen, looking at your MySpace profile we noticed that you recently published a painting called “Höghus”, where we can find different symbols that represent parts of your life: three wise monkeys, a skeleton, car toys, dice, a spaceman walking next to a mirrored disco balls. Why did you chose these subjects? What's their meaning for you?
Dregen: Oh now you’re talking to my artistic side…
Nicke: Ooh I’ll be back in 5!

Dregen: “Höghus” means skyscraper. This is my first commercial painting that people can actually have it in the living room. So I wanted to give away part of my life I’ve been growing up with. I found an old drawer from the 40s and I turned it upside down for the painting.
When I was a kid, I’ve lived in a building for 10 years. I realized I’ve never seen my neighbours’ living room, or what kind of sofa they had or paint on the wall We live so close but anyone is so far away. That was the main idea.

Dregen, you have grown a lot as a singer. Have you ever thought of doing a solo project?
Dregen: No, maybe if I’d time off, but we’re a band and we can’t really find time.

Nicke, is it the same for you?
Nicke: We write lots of songs constantly and most of them are coming down to Backyard Babies. Even if you write a song that’s not meant to be a Backyard Babies song, it end ups as a Backyard Babies songs anyway, when it’s time to make a new album.
It’s cool to play with other musicians because you learn a lot. We’ve been together for 20 years, I perfectly know what kind of riff Dregen is putting on that part of the song. Working with other musicians you get new inspirations. A solo album would be “I got nothing to do, I’m taking 2 years off”

Dregen: I have a hobby band with the drummer from Hellacopters, called “Midlife Crisis”, we realized two 7” singles, and also I’ve been working with a swedish artist that sing in swedish, but if we’ve been together for 20 years and nobody has done a solo album is because we don’t really have music that we can’t get out thru Backyard Babies we’re pretty open-minded, even if Nicke presents a country song, we can turn it inside down and it’s still the same song., it turn out to be a Backyard Babies song. So solo stuff is for people that is not very satisfied after his position in the band.

Nicke: Even when we did a song for a TV, we never thought that could and up as Backyard Babies sound, but it perfectly fits.

Dregen: If I‘m gonna do a solo thing, it’s not gonna be a solo at all, because it would probably be featuring Nicke Borg on vocals. There are so much artists you want to work with. Over the yeas we met a lot of new friends that would turn into a fun thing. I would form a band, and use different musicians for all different songs. But I think it’s easier to win the national lottery than to get all the musicians to be free at the same time to record with you.

Dregen, you recorded 'Pirates Of The Baltic Sea' with Mike Monroe, Jussi, Adam Bomb and Kory Clarke. Talk to us about this experience.
Dregen; I forgot about that! It’s a charity ting, Finland did the same thing we did in Sweden. We had a tour in 2006 called “Where The Action Is”, going on in Sweden, including bands like: Millencolin, Backyard Babies, The Hives, Hellacopters ecc. It shown up that at least one member of each band was really into fishing. And we thought that there were so much pollution in the water and all the fishes were dying ecc.. And the guitarist from Millencolin, Erik Ohlsoon, had the idea to make a compilation cds that we would sell and all the money would be collected so give away to save the sea. We collected 38.000 euro so far. And now Finland is doing kind of the same. Mike Monroe recorded “Pirates Of The Baltic Sea”. That song is going to be in a very popular magazine in Finland (sorry I don’t remember the name) and the song is for free if you buy the magazine!

You've been in close quarters for 20 years now. What would you say is each others best and worst qualities?
Nicke: Wow! Best and worst qualities? It’s just that you don’t see the good qualities, just all the worst ones.
Dregen: About Joan, the is that he’s really lazy, but the best it’s that he’s really trusty. When you need him, you know he’s there.
And Peder Carlsson, he’s kind of schizophrenic. He’s very productive, but boring when it’s about cables ad recording stuff, but he still have blackouts about songs we played 4000 times

Nicke: And he loses his phone about 3 or 4 times in a day.
Dregen: Yeah he has the best phone, and he loses it constantly!

And what about the two of you? Think about your shadows!
Dregen: I don’t really know! Maybe Nicke is very tough about his decisions and directions, hard to convince him. That is both good and worst quality. He never gives up. He’s hard to fool.

Nicke: I think in general that’s the best and worst quality of each one of us. We’re stubborn, every record is a struggle, every tour is a struggle, most of the band would have given up so far. We have a background that nobody has!